Front Row

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Front Row: Conductor Antonio Pappano on Puccini’s Turandot and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile

Conductor Antonio Pappano on Puccini’s Turandot and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Conductor Antonio Pappano on Puccini’s Turandot and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile

Antonio Pappano on Turandot, and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile.

Directors Simon Stone and Dominic Cooke discuss how they are staging the tragic, transgressive stories of Phaedra and Medea and why they still speak to audiences today.

Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano tells us about his two new versions of Puccini’s opera, Turandot – a revival on stage at the Royal Opera House, and a new recording with tenor Jonas Kaufman, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and the Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

A year on from the invasion of Ukraine, Luke Jones hears from some of the Ukrainian performers living and working in exile.  He joins Hooligan Art Community, a performance group that started in the bomb shelters of Kyiv, as they rehearse for their new show, Bunker Cabaret.  

There are two blistering performances on the London stage today: Janet McTeer in Phaedra at the National Theatre and Sophie Okonedo as Medea at Soho Place. The plays' directors, Simon Stone and Dominic Cooke, discuss the hold these stories of two transgressive and tragic women have had over audiences for two and a half millennia, and why they speak to us today.

Presenter: Shahidha Bari
Producer: Olivia Skinner

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Front Row

Conductor Antonio Pappano on Puccini’s Turandot and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4